Gamelan sekaten

Gamelan sekaten is the ceremonial music of the great sekati gamelan sets of the royal courts of Surakarta and Yogyakarta in Central Java, played above all for Sekaten, the week-long festival marking the Prophet Muhammad's birthday. Each court keeps two ancient, venerated sets of instruments — in Yogyakarta named Guntur Madu and Guntur Sari — sounded by court musicians in slow, weighty pieces of exceptional sonority, their oversized gongs and deep-toned metallophones tuned apart from ordinary gamelan. The sets are heirlooms: carried out and installed with ritual care for the festival, and otherwise kept silent for the rest of the year.